Let wind and weather do its worst,

Be you to us but kind,

Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse,
No sorrow we shall find;

'Tis then no matter how things go,

Or who's our friend, or who's our foc.

To pass our tedious hours away,
We throw a merry main,
Or else at serious ombre play,

But why should we in vain
Each other's ruin thus pursue?
We were undone when we left you!

But now our fears tempestuous grow
And cast our hopes away,
Whilst you, regardless of our woe,
Sit careless at a play,-

Perhaps permit some happier man
To kiss your hand or flirt your fan.

When any mournful tune you hear,
That dies in every note,

As if it sighed with each man's care,
For being so remote,

Think then how often love we've made
To you, when all those tunes were played.

In justice you can not refuse

To think of our distress,

When we for hopes of honour lose
Our certain happiness;

All those designs are but to prove
Ourselves more worthy of your love.

And now we've told you all our loves,
And likewise all our fears,
In hopes this declaration moves
Some pity from your tears:
Let's hear of no inconstancy,
We have too much of that at sea.

SONG.

Dorinda's sparkling wit and eyes
United cast too fierce a light,
Which blazes high, but quickly dies,

Pains not the heart, but hurts the sight.

Love is a calmer, gentler joy,

Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace,

Her Cupid is a blackguard boy,

That runs his link full in your face.

SONG.

Phillis, for shame, let us improve

A thousand different ways

Those few short moments snatched by love From many tedious days.

If you want courage to despise

The censure of the grave, Though love's a tyrant in your eyes,

Your heart is but a slave.

My love is full of noble pride,
Nor can it e'er submit

To let that fop, Discretion, ride

In triumph over it.

False friends I have, as well as you,

Who daily counsel me Fame and ambition to pursue,

And leave off loving thee.

But when the least regard I show
To fools who thus advise,

May I be dull enough to grow

Most miserably wise.

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY.

[SIR CHARLES SEDLEY was born at Aylesford in 1639, and died August 20, 1701. His most famous comedy, The Mulberry Garden, appeared in 1668; his poetical and dramatic works were collected in 1719.]

Sedley was one of the most graceful and refined of the mob of Restoration gentlemen who wrote in prose and verse. For nearly forty years he was recognised as a patron of the art of poetry, and as an amateur of more than usual skill. Three times, at intervals of ten years, he produced a play in the taste of the age, and when his clever comedy of Bellamira was condemned at the Theatre Royal, on account of its intolerable indelicacy, he sulked for the remainder of his life, and left to his executors three more plays in manuscript. His songs are bright and lively, but inferior to those of Rochester in lyrical force. A certain sweetness of diction in his verse delighted his contemporaries, who praised his 'witchcraft' and his 'gentle prevailing art.' In his plays he seems to be successively inspired by Etheredge, Shadwell and Crowne. Two lines in his most famous song have preserved his reputation from complete decay.

EDMUND W. GOSSE.

SONG.

Love still has something of the sea,
From whence his Mother rose ;
No time his slaves from love can free,
Nor give their thoughts repose.

They are becalm'd in clearest days,
And in rough weather tost;
They wither under cold delays,
Or are in tempests lost.

One while they seem to touch the port,
Then straight into the main
Some angry wind in cruel sport
Their vessel drives again.

At first disdain and pride they fear,
Which, if they chance to 'scape,
Rivals and falsehood soon appear
In a more dreadful shape.

By such degrees to joy they come,
And are so long withstood,
So slowly they receive the sum,
It hardly does them good.

'Tis cruel to prolong a pain, And to defer a bliss, Believe me, gentle Hermoine,

No less inhuman is.

An hundred thousand oaths your fears Perhaps would not remove,

And if I gazed a thousand years,

I could no deeper love.

'Tis fitter much for you to guess
Than for me to explain,

But grant, oh! grant that happiness,
Which only does remain.

SONG.

[From The Mulberry Garden.]

Ah! Chloris, that I now could sit
As unconcerned as when
Your infant beauty could beget
No pleasure, nor no pain!

When I the dawn used to admire
And praised the coming day,
I little thought the growing fire
Must take my rest away.

Your charms in harmless childhood lay,
Like metals in the mine,
Age from no face took more away

VOL. II.

Than youth concealed in thine.

But as your charms insensibly
To their perfection prest,
Fond love as unperceived did fly,
And in my bosom rest.

My passion with your beauty grew,
And Cupid at my heart,
Still as his mother favoured you,
Threw a new flaming dart.

Each gloried in their wanton part;
To make a lover, he
Employed the utmost of his art,

To make a beauty she.

Though now I slowly bend to love,

Uncertain of my fate,

If your fair self my chains approve
I shall my freedom hate.

Ee